MORE PARAMEDICS BOOST CITY SERVICE

The Morning CallTHE MORNING CALL

"This has the potential to save many lives and to prevent many disabling injuries."

- Gary Gurian, Director, Allentown Bureau of Health.

Allentown's second paramedic-equipped ambulance unit goes into full service on Feb. 1. More than just a statement of bureaucratic fact, that action will push this city head and shoulders above most municipalities in the state when it comes to providing top-quality emergency medical care for its residents. The city's current program for providing immediate pre-hospital care for the sick and injured is adequate. But the 1986 model is superior. Currently, the city offers one crew of highly trained paramedics in one ambulance, but police officers with lower levels of emergency care skills respond in the other. With this laudable expansion of services, Allentown and its progressive health bureau have effectively doubled the quality of that crucial, pre-hospital treatment - treatment that can spell the difference between life and death, or more frequently, a shorter term period of recovery for those in need who get the right care when they need it.

Providing such high caliber medical care does not come cheaply. Health Bureau Director Gurian calculates the cost of putting the second Advanced Life Support unit on the streets at approximately $250,000. Allentown taxpayers will be responsible for paying directly for about 60 percent of that amount, thanks to substantial non-city tax revenues available for such services. But the lifesaving potential of having two paramedic units on duty, 24 hours a day, ready to respond for cries for help from those stricken by serious illness, or injured in accidents, or burned by fire, does much to offset the fiscal concerns. It's difficult to put a price tag on the peace of mind provided by such a medical security blanket.

Mr. Gurian and other city officials are to be commended for taking this forward-thinking approach to what is a serious concern to all Allentonians, regardless of age, socio-economic condition, race, religion. Trauma and serious illness do not discriminate. They can strike anybody, at anytime. This is one city service that no one wants to use . . . but we can be grateful that it's there if ever it's needed.